


Wish You Were Here

by lifetimeoflaughter



Category: DCU, Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Dick Grayson Has Issues, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Donna Troy is Dead, Gen, Titans, dc, titans s2 finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:35:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22007074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifetimeoflaughter/pseuds/lifetimeoflaughter
Summary: Donna's dead. Dick is sad. sadder than he usually is.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Donna Troy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	Wish You Were Here

**Author's Note:**

> I really was heartbroken by Donna's death;; girl deserved better.

There is a line of people that stand behind him, no matter the time or place. They follow him around, but he can’t see them - he just knows that they’re there. Mom. Dad. Garth. Jericho, who leaves. And then Donna, who takes his place. She joins them, and she stares a hole into the back of his head. He can’t turn, because then he’ll lose the false comfort of having her around. So he waits.

He waits for her to go away, for the pain to go away.

She never does. 

-

It’s dark tonight. Darker than he’s ever seen it be. It’s been a month since Donna ~~died~~ ~~left~~ _~~joined Garth~~_ died. A month since she’d died. They’d been getting back into the swing of things, slowly. Dawn and Kory and Hank were still there, still alive. And the kids, all of them. Gar and Rose and Conner. Jason was somewhere out there, in the great unknown. Rachel was still on Themyscira, safe and well - he assumed. He hadn’t heard from her, and he realizes now, as he watches San Francisco glow beneath him, that he’s not assuming, or even hoping - he’s praying. Praying that he doesn’t have to lose another ~~sister~~ piece of his family.

His elbows rest on the ledge as he leans forward to look at the sky, staring up at the stars that he can’t see because of all the light pollution. But the longer you look up, the more stars you’ll see. _And then maybe you’ll finally beat me at mapping constellations, Grayson,_ she had said, laughing. 

_It’s not fair, Donna! Why do you always have to win?_

_Easy. I’m older, smarter and prettier,_ and he had punched her in the shoulder before laughing himself.

How did it all vanish so fast? They were just kids, hanging out while Wonder Woman and Batman saved the world - how is it that the time for them to make the sacrifices came so soon? He wishes he had spent more time making better memories with Donna, instead of having spent his entire childhood angry. It’s irrational to say now, after so long, but he wishes he had more smiles to fall back on. It had only been a month, but he missed her. _So much._

Deep down, Dick always knew this was going to happen. 

He just…always thought it would be him. God knew he was the most reckless asshole alive, and Donna was an Amazon… A smart, capable, superhuman warrior, who, if she had to die, should’ve died a righteous death on a battlefield against some great evil. Not by electrocution via fairground tower-lights. 

God, what he wouldn’t give to see his big sister one more time. Because that’s what she was to him, wasn’t she? Calm, capable, cool? More knowing and wise and experienced than he could pretend to be. The one who let him crash on her couch, the one who had her life together, the one that always had his back, no matter what dumb shit he’d pulled this time. 

He can see, as his eyes focus on the blackness, the Cassiopeia constellation. It had been her favorite story to tell - she loved the link to her homeland (even if it wasn’t really her homeland) and although it was a sad story, she would tell it again and again. Donna was like that. She was drawn to sad stories. The Greek myths Diana taught her, her namesake’s fate - the plights of those in war, in famine, the extinction stories - Donna herself. Tragedy upon tragedy. 

_Such is the story of a noble Greek hero,_ she would say. 

What was she going to do without her? He’d been wandering around with a hole in his heart for a month. It was worse than Garth dying, yes, worse. Rachel had asked him if he would be okay. He’d lied.

Oh, Rachel. 

Some part of him hoped to God that she wouldn’t be able to resurrect Donna. It was selfish, and no matter which way he thought about it his heart broke every time. Rachel said her magic didn’t come from Trigon anymore, and he believed her - he swore he did. But he’d been the one that had seen her powers at the very beginning. He was the one who had had to calm her down after her reflection had screamed bloody murder at her, he had been the first one to fall and commit unspeakable horrors in the service of a demon warlord from another dimension. 

If Rachel was able to resurrect Donna, it would cost something. It always did. And what would she be like if she was? Would she actually be their Donna Troy? Or would she be a hollow shell, a puppet with black holes for eyes? 

There were so many many stars in the sky. They twinkled brightly, light years away from where he stood, reflected in his eyes. The same stars that Rachel was looking up at, the same stars that Kory would soon have to go towards, the same stars that Donna could no longer see. The same stars, their light now being stretched in the tear tracks running down his face, as he stares up at the deep, dark sky. 

They say that the people you love don’t ever truly leave you, but that’s a lie. They leave. They die, or they are killed. They tumble to the ground off a sabotaged trapeze and murdered by their own fathers. They are killed by contracted assassins at airports moments after teary goodbyes and used as human wires by fairground lights, dying to save someone else. The people you love die, and they leave, and they leave ghosts in your mind and bleeding bullet holes in your heart and fear that no matter what, you can’t save them - you are cursed to watch them taunt you with their deaths in your dreams. 

He’d die a thousand times over a thousand different ways if meant keeping everyone he loved safe. Donna. Kory. Rachel, Gar, Garth, Hank and Dawn and Jason and Rose and Jericho…Bruce…and Alfred…even his old now-dead partner from Detroit. He wished, so badly, that he could take the fall for them. 

If he died, right now, would it make up for all the pain that he couldn’t stop? How much does he matter to them, anyway? Maybe if he died, everyone would stop fighting all the time. Jason would find someone better to teach him, and Hank would stop hating him for loving Dawn. Kory Anders, Princess of _fucking_ Tamaran, could finally move onto better things and forget about him. Rachel would move on. She would be fine. They all would be. 

He’s leaning over the edge of the tower now, and his tears are dripping onto the traffic passing by below. God, he hasn’t cried in ages. Not like this, not since he was a kid. 

But he knows if he throws himself off this ledge tonight, no one will notice till morning. Everyone in the tower thinks he’s safe, sitting in his bedroom with an old Frida Kahlo book he stole from Donna years ago. Rachel thinks he’s okay, training with the team but if he were to fall…it would break her heart, he thinks, moving away from the ledge. His death would come with the sunrise, and it would hurt them all, even if they didn’t care. 

He’s not sure if he believes in a life after death, but he just wants to see her so badly… and yet he can feel her standing behind him.

So he whips around, trying to catch a fragment of a second to see her face again - but she’s not there. He’s alone up here, and the only thing accompanying him are the ghosts of the people he loves. 

He slumps down against the wall of the ledge. The stars are gone. The city’s going to sleep.

It really is dark tonight. The darkest he’s ever seen it be.


End file.
